Any language learner at any level of his learning involuntarily comes across encrypted clichés, phrases and stereotyped expressions, the meaning of which cannot be deciphered without special background knowledge about the culture of the people – the native speakers. In this regard, the relevance of the study of precedent expressions in the context of newspaper headlines is obvious. Research objectives: 1) to reveal the semantic features of precedent expressions in newspaper headlines, 2) to identify the linguistic cultural components of precedent expressions in the context in the English-language newspaper headlines. The research is based on the following methods: